Seven Taiwanese films are among more than 300 films from 75 countries to be screened at this year’s Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, which opened yesterday.
Taiwanese films are performing better each year at international film festivals and are also doing well in the film trade, said Chu Wen-ching (朱文清), head of the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development.
Chu said his bureau has set up a Taiwan pavilion at the festival’s Asian Film Market, where 16 Taiwanese companies are expected to try to sell their films. The Asian Film Market deals with a variety of businesses in the field, from sales of copyrights, investment and production to post-production.
The bureau has also organized a Taiwan Night for Monday that is to be attended by filmmakers, actors and actresses, including Taiwanese-French actress Sandrine Pinna (張榕容) and Taiwanese model and actress Sonia Sui (隋棠).
The seven Taiwanese films to be showcased include Touch of the Light (逆光飛翔) by Chang Rong-ji (張榮吉) and Together (甜‧秘密) by Hsu Chao-jen (許肇任). Both films have been nominated for an award in the festival’s New Currents competition.
Touch of the Light, which stars Pinna, is about a girl who dreams of becoming a dancer and develops a friendship with a blind musician, while Together is about a high-school boy’s observation of people around him who are bothered by love.
Other films include Go Grand-riders (不老騎士), a feature-length documentary by Hua Tien-hau (華天灝) that tells the story of a motorcycle journey around Taiwan by 17 old men, and short film Daily Life (過站) by Chang Chia-yun (張家筠), about a warm day shared by a daughter and mother. Both of these films have been nominated in the festival’s Wide Angle competition.
Meanwhile, 10+10 by Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), a collection of 20 five-minute shorts by 20 directors on what they see as the uniqueness of Taiwan, has been selected to be screened in the Window on Asian Cinema section.
Also to be shown in this section are GF*BF (女朋友。男朋友) by Yang Ya-che about the love and friendship between three youngsters who joined the student movements in Taiwan in the 1980s, and a Taiwan-Myanmar co-production titled Poor Folk (窮人‧榴槤‧麻藥‧偷渡客) by Burmese director Midi Z (趙德胤), which depicts the lives of illegal immigrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand.
The 10-day festival is scheduled to run through Oct. 13. It opened last night with the world premiere of Hong Kong thriller Cold War which stars screen veterans Aaron Kwok (郭富城) and Tony Leung Ka-fai (梁家輝).
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